SECURITY by John Frank Weaver

 

   

 

   

          The last fight Joanna and I had was passing through security at the Charlottesville airport. The airport is one of those tiny regional facilities, servicing cigarette boxes with engines that fly to other tiny regional facilities in places like Morgantown and Chattanooga. What’s security like in a place like that? Two guys, who do Civil War re-enactments on the weekends, armed with a metal detector and a book of FAA regulations. Basically, if you try to bring a gun or a 4 oz. bottle of shampoo on a plane, they know to stop you.

            And it was my 12 oz. bottle of shampoo that set Joanna off. Not that she needed much. Arguing occupied most of our time by that point. We were going to Fayetteville to visit her folks for the weekend, and I didn’t put anything in a smaller container, as instructed by my wife and the FAA regulations she obnoxiously printed out for me. Not my shampoo, not my shaving cream, not my deodorant, not my aspirin, not my toothpaste. Nothing. When we got to airport security, the two guys noticed the bottles of potential liquid mayhem in my carry-on.

            “What did I ask you last night?” Joanna asked me tersely so anyone with half an interest in the area could hear. She always did that, partly out of exasperation, partly to embarrass me. “I had extra travel bottles. I asked you, do you need one. You said no. Were you even listening to me? Why was I even talking out loud to you?”

            “I heard you just fine Jo,” I returned in a level voice, purposefully using the diminutive form of her name. “I didn’t think it’d be a big deal taking the full things through. It’s not like we’re flying to New York or anything.”

            “FAA regulations, sir,” said the 50ish guy, as he removed the toothpaste from my bag. “Liquids, gels and aerosols may only travel in carry-on luggage if in containers three ounces or smaller, all of which must fit into a singe quart-sized, clear, plastic, ziptop bag. This is to prevent dangerous materials from being used in flight.” He clearly repeated this from rote memory. But then, breaking character, he added, “You wanna check this back at the counter, or should I just toss all the stuff that can’t board?”

            I gave a, by then well-practiced, sigh. “Naw, don’t worry about it. Just toss that stuff. I’ll pick up some more when we land. Do I at least get to keep the aspirin?” The guy choked up a chuckle as he tossed the aspirin bottle back in my bag. He kept the rest of the contraband.

            As we wheeled our carry-ons through the small terminal, Joanna wouldn’t let up. Which was typical. “For the love of Christ, Larry, how many times did I remind you about putting that stuff in smaller containers?” Then came the expected short, jabby sentences. “I even printed out the stupid FAA webpage. They’re worried about dangerous materials. No one wants another Nine Eleven. They’re just doing their jobs. I don’t know why you have to get so difficult around this stuff.”

            “Sorry, Jo,” I said absent mindedly. I knew better, but I still had muscle memory of hope that by giving in quietly she’d leave me in peace. That that tactic never worked was one of the many reasons why this was our last fight.

            “Oh don’t try to shut me up, Larry. I’m mad now. You just wasted about twenty dollars because you couldn’t remember to use smaller bottles. I hope you’re happy now. I know they are – they know nothing ‘dangerous’ got in on you. You knew they were going to check you, why couldn’t you just pack a little smarter?”

            “It’s a small airport, I didn’t think they’d go through the whole search.” Our fights had always gone this way. She’d pick apart some little thing I did and wouldn’t let it go. We’d been married for four years, and I was looking at another four decades of hearing about every damn little thing she found annoying. It was enough to make me hate her.

            “Oh please.” She was getting a full head of steam. “Don’t sell me that crap.” We were at our gate now. And here was the part I’d waited for. “Now I’ve got a headache.” She always got a headache if she got pissed enough. “Give me a couple of those aspirins you snuck through.”

            When I gave her two tablets she walked down to a kiosk to get a bottle of water. I stood by our bags, watching her pop the pills and take a swig of water to wash them down. It was only then that I relaxed.

Getting her to take the pills was always going to be the hardest part. The guy I bought them from guaranteed me that the way those things accelerated your heart made it almost impossible to survive the stress of changing altitudes during take off. A person’s poor heart can’t take it. And the pills’ residue disappears in the backed up bloodstream. So much for security catching all the dangerous materials.

 

 

 

John Frank Weaver is an editor-at-large for the American Constitution Society blog and the symposium editor for the Law and Religion Program at Boston College Law School. His writing has appeared in Defenestration, the Boston Globe’s Sidekick Magazine, and McSweeney’s, among others.